Olivier Cinquin

Systems biology of cell differentiation – We follow three complementary approaches to address the regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation. In a first approach, we start from a fecund, simple model organ whose regulation has been extensively characterized at the genetic and biochemical levels: the C. elegans germ line. We ask how the current knowledge of regulatory parts all fits together to explain organ-level behavior. We perform experiments that target organ-level behavior of the germ line, rather than individual genes in the regulatory network. Guided by these experiments, and building on knowledge generated by many labs over the past 30 years, we use mathematical and computational methods to analyze how the regulatory network accounts for organ-level control of cell proliferation and differentiation. Read the rest at cinquin.org.uk